A small group becomes a safe place for a survivor long before anyone tells the truth in it. Safety comes from what the group already knows, already says out loud, and already has ready. That means learning what abuse looks like, practicing how to respond when someone speaks, being honest about where the group’s role stops, and having trained help on hand before it is needed. This study builds those things in that order. A group can complete it in one long session or across two meetings. A person reading alone can do every exercise privately.
The material draws on a Jude 3 Project podcast conversation in which Lisa Fields talks with Morgan McCoy, an actress, former professor and entrepreneur who tours a one-woman show about domestic violence and listens to the women who come up to her afterward. Assume that someone in your circle is carrying this right now and has not said so.
Before anyone gathers
If you are leading, do three things before the first meeting. Write down the name and phone number of a domestic violence organization that serves your area, along with the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-7233, which Lisa Fields shared at the end of the conversation. Find out whether your state’s reporting laws apply to you if a child is in danger. Then decide privately what you will do if someone discloses abuse: whom you would call, and where you could talk with that person away from the group.
When the group gathers, say plainly at the start that no one will be asked to share anything personal. Every reflection in this study can be done silently. A survivor is often listening for whether a room will demand more than she can give.
Notice what the room is already saying
McCoy describes something she has seen again and again after her performances. Women who sat in the same services came to her one at a time with stories of abuse. In her words, “none of them knew that they were all going through the same thing until somebody said something after the show.”
Those women were in the pews, worshiping together, and still alone. Their silence reflected the room, not an absence of abuse. McCoy also explains why the silence holds: “a lot of times if you’re being abused, you think there’s something wrong with you.” Someone who already suspects she caused her own suffering will watch closely for any sign that the group agrees with her.
A silent inventory. Give everyone five minutes and a piece of paper. Each person writes answers for themselves, without sharing:
- When did you last hear the word abuse spoken in your church or group, and in what setting?
- When someone in your circle has had a marriage end or a relationship fall apart, what were the first things people said?
- What, if anything, have you heard in this group about marriage, conflict or forgiveness that a person being hurt at home might take as a message about whether to speak?
Then ask the group a single question out loud, answered in general terms rather than from anyone’s paper: which topics come up here easily, and which ones never come up at all?
Read a psalm written by someone betrayed up close
Psalm 55 is a lament, a prayer poem in which someone tells God the truth about harm. As poetry, it gives words rather than instructions. Its value for this study is that Scripture itself makes room for that speech.
Read verses 12-14 aloud together:
For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.
Before anyone interprets, ask the group to observe. Who hurt the psalmist? Where did they go together? Then read verse 21: “The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords” (Psalm 55:21). Notice the gap between how this person sounded in public and what he was in private.
That gap is what Lisa Fields names about abuse among believers. People inside churches often expect an abuser to fit a certain mold, and when he does not, the person he hurts fears she will not be believed. Fields says plainly that people “could be used by God and be abusive.” The psalm agrees. The betrayer walked to the house of God in company with the one he betrayed.
Now read verse 6: “And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest” (Psalm 55:6). The verse is not a rule about what every person must do. It does show that the longing to get away from danger can be prayed honestly, without being treated as a failure of faith.
A lament practice. Give the group ten quiet minutes. Each person may choose one of two options. The first is to write a short private lament in the psalm’s pattern: what happened, who did it, what I want, what I am asking God. It can be about any harm, large or small. The second, for anyone who does not want to write about their own life, is to copy out Psalm 55:12-14 by hand and underline the phrases that would be hardest for a hurting person to say out loud in church. Close the exercise without asking anyone to read what they wrote.
Leaders, if someone becomes visibly distressed, let them step out, and find a quiet moment afterward to say you are available. If someone discloses abuse in front of the group, thank them, tell them you believe them, and gently suggest the two of you talk privately right after the session so the group does not become an audience. Then, in that private conversation, ask whether they are safe to go home tonight, and offer to call the hotline or the local organization with them.
Test what you have been taught about submission
McCoy says people “manipulate that scripture” about wives submitting to justify whatever a husband wants. Before reading, ask each person to write one sentence summarizing how they have heard Ephesians 5 taught.
Then state the hard reading at its strongest, because some in the room may hold it sincerely. It runs like this: verses 22-24 tell wives to submit to their husbands in everything, marriage is a covenant God takes seriously, and so a wife should endure mistreatment, keep quiet and pray rather than risk breaking up her home. Behind it is often a real love for marriage and a reluctance to accuse a respected man.
Now check it against the passage. The instructions to wives open a longer set of household instructions that run into chapter 6, addressing husbands, children, parents, servants and masters in turn. In the KJV, verse 21 completes a string of phrases describing what it looks like to “be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18): speaking, singing, giving thanks, and then “Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God” (Ephesians 5:21). Every believer in the household stands under that call. The longest instruction then goes to husbands: “Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it” (Ephesians 5:25). McCoy draws the conclusion that follows: “the husband should be willing to lay his life down for his wife, not beat his wife up.”
A two-column test. Draw two columns. Over the first, write the hard reading as stated above. Over the second, write verses 21 and 25 read together with 22-24. Under each, list what that reading would permit a husband to do: raise his voice, control the money, decide whom she sees, strike her. Then ask which list Christ giving himself for the church could account for.
Christians who take this passage seriously still differ on real questions, such as what headship means for decisions in a marriage and when separation or divorce is warranted. Those debates deserve careful study. They do not need to be settled before anyone acts, because none of those readings turns the passage into permission to harm. Lisa Fields puts the test simply: “love isn’t violent.” A person who gets to safety has not broken the covenant. The violence did.
Rehearse what you will say if someone speaks
McCoy describes the first time a friend told her what a boyfriend was doing. McCoy told her to get out, and the friend stopped talking to her for a while. McCoy came to understand why: a person being abused is controlled and given orders constantly, so when a friend adds one more order, “there’s a block up because they’ve been constantly being controlled.”
A counselor taught her a different way: “ask them is something wrong, express your concern.” Listen, validate what you hear, and offer help. She suggests questions that let the person reach her own conclusions: “Do you think this is a healthy relationship for you? Do you think this is God’s best for you? Do you feel safe?” McCoy also says people often think about leaving several times before they actually go, which is why she warns against ultimatums. Cutting someone off to force a decision may come at the very moment she needs you one more time.
A practice in pairs. One person reads this prompt aloud: A friend tells you her husband checks her phone every night and decides which friends she can see. The other practices a first response using only questions and offers of help: no advice, no verdict about the husband, no instruction to leave. Then switch. Afterward, each pair names one thing they were tempted to say and why it would have shut the door.
Rehearse one more rule: if someone discloses, believe them and stay calm. Do not ask why they have not left. Do not promise to keep a secret that leaves them or a child in danger. Do not suggest a meeting with them and their partner together.
Know where the group’s job ends
A small group can give back what abuse takes away. McCoy notes that “people that have been abused have been isolated for so long, they don’t feel like they have a support system.” She then asks, “So if they can find that support system in the body of Christ, what better place to go?” A group that keeps showing up, calling and praying is giving something real.
It is not a crisis team, though. Its members are not trained to judge how dangerous a home is or to build a safety plan. McCoy urges leaders to learn from local domestic violence organizations and counselors for a specific reason: “what you don’t wanna do is say something that will cause the person to put themselves in harm’s way.” Loving well can mean recognizing you are not the right person to manage the situation, then staying close while someone trained does. As McCoy puts it, “we have to do more than pray.”
Questions for the group
- What would a person in our group have to believe about us before they risked telling the truth about their home? Which of those things do they have reason to believe now?
- Psalm 55 voices anger, fear and a wish to escape directly to God. How does your church usually respond when someone prays that honestly in front of others?
- Lisa Fields says people can be used by God and still be abusive. Why might that be harder for a congregation to accept than abuse by a stranger?
- In the two-column test, which reading accounted for more of Ephesians 5:21-25? What would make you reconsider your answer?
- During the pairs exercise, what instinct did you notice in yourself, and where do you think it comes from?
- Where should our group’s care stop and trained help begin? Is there anything we have been doing that belongs on the other side of that line?
Before you leave the room
Hand every person a card with the National Domestic Violence Hotline, 1-800-799-7233, and the local organization you found. Give it to everyone, so taking one gives no one away. Say that anyone in immediate danger should call 911, and anyone thinking about harming themselves can call or text 988.
Then read one verse together and leave it unexplained: “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit” (Psalm 34:18). Nigh means near, and contrite carries the sense of crushed. The verse does not promise a timeline or a particular outcome. It promises nearness.
If you are reading this alone and you are afraid of someone at home, McCoy’s words are for you: “you should not be afraid of the person that’s supposed to love you.” Your safety comes before anyone’s opinion of you, and getting to safety is not a betrayal of God. Advocates at 1-800-799-7233 can help you think through your options at your own pace.
For the group, this week’s assignment is concrete. Each person puts the hotline number somewhere they can find it quickly. Then choose one person to ask your pastor or church leaders a single question: if someone here told us they were being hurt at home, whom would we call?